Fight Heats Up to Redevelop Arena Site in Meadowlands

By RONALD SMOTHERS

Published: January 18, 2003

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J., Jan. 17—
The effort to redevelop the Continental Arena site, as its sports teams anticipate a move to Newark, began four months ago as an orderly competition among six major developers. They quietly showed their traffic studies, economic projections and colorful site plans to the professional staff of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which will decide the fate of the Meadowlands site.

But in recent weeks, as the field has narrowed to three finalists, the competition has turned into a bare-knuckled public fight that some say is beginning to look like a mudslinging political campaign.

Two of the three finalists have spent heavily on full-page newspaper advertisements aimed more at persuading the public than the sports authority. One of those developers, Hartz Mountain Industries, distributed a videotape this week claiming that the rival plan was just another mall masquerading as a family entertainment complex.

And on Thursday, the Hartz Mountain plan for a convention center even drew a campaign-style endorsement from the New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, which said its adjacent Meadowlands Raceway would be helped more by a wave of conventiongoers than by a flood of shoppers.

In mall-rich Bergen County, where the Meadowlands is situated, the sports authority and elected officials have warned against the creation of yet another huge shopping development. They would prefer entertainment or activities that draw families; even stores, they say, should have an interactive component.

But authority officials are concerned about the harshly interactive turn the competition has taken.

''It seems to me to be a little overreaching to try to influence us this way,'' said George Zoffinger, president of the sports authority, when asked about the videotape that was sent to authority staff members and elected officials. ''This is more like negative political campaigning, and I am a business guy who looks at facts and numbers.''

The nine-minute videotape was produced by Hartz Mountain, a major developer in the region, and Forest City Ratner Companies, of Cleveland. They are partners in an $815 million plan to create a convention center, hotels, offices, a few stores and an indoor Formula One racing center.

The videotape attacked the proposal by a partnership of the Mills Corporation, of Arlington, Va., and the Mack Cali Realty Corporation, which is based in Cranford, N.J. Their $1.2 billion project, called Xanadu, would have offices, a hotel and a minor-league baseball stadium, as well as indoor activities, including skiing, surfing, skating, movie theaters and a wildlife museum.

The third finalist, which has been less aggressive, is the Westfield Group, a Los Angeles developer that is proposing a $989 million complex of offices, hotels and an ''urban village'' built around a refurbished arena that would offer entertainment events.

Emanuel Stern, chief operating officer of Hartz Mountain Industries, said his company had produced the video because it felt that Mills had misrepresented its own proposal as focused more toward entertainment than shopping.

Mr. Stern, a camera crew and an actress went to the Arundel Mills Mall in Maryland. There they visited a half-dozen outlets -- combining retail and some sort of interactive experience, in what Mills calls shoppertainment -- that Mills had indicated would be part of its Meadowlands complex.

On the tape, the actress asks shoppers to characterize their visits to those stores as either a ''retail experience'' or ''a family entertainment experience.'' The shoppers all choose the first description.

Anthony E. Pizzutillo, president of Issues Management, a Princeton lobbying firm that has been hired by Hartz Mountain and Forest City Ratner, said the partners had produced the videotape to keep the authority and others in the region from ''being duped by a large Virginia developer.'' He said they had asked Mr. Zoffinger to hold public hearings on the redevelopment of the site to allow the discussion of their criticisms.

Edward Vinson, executive vice president of Mills, dismissed the videotape, saying that the Arundel Mills Mall had only a few of the entertainment features envisioned for the Meadowlands.

''I find it interesting that Hartz Mountain has spent spend a good portion of their time attacking us rather than explaining their own proposal,'' he said. ''If we have done anything, it has been on a positive and constructive note.''

And, Mr. Vinson might have added, with great frequency. In the last several weeks, more than a dozen full-page advertisements in local papers have praised the Mills proposal and the company's contributions to the community, including computers for schools, Little League uniforms and the proposed construction of a Y.M.C.A. building on the Meadowlands site.

Some Republican officials in Bergen County contend that the intense campaigning has a distinct political tone. A number of local developers who are Democratic contributors have allied themselves with Mills. Hartz Mountain, long a fixture in the region with its own ties to Democrats, is scrambling to keep from losing ground.

Mr. Zoffinger said the authority would develop questions and seek more information from the three finalists next week. After the authority consults the advisory group, he and the authority chairman, Carl Goldberg, will brief Gov. James E. McGreevey. Mr. Zoffinger said he expected to make a final decision on Feb. 12, and no public hearings are scheduled.